Paul Krugman (NYT): So the Supreme Court – defying many expectations – upheld the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare …. this a big victory for President Obama … But the real winners are ordinary Americans – people like you.

How many people are we talking about? You might say 30 million, the number of additional people the Congressional Budget Office says will have health insurance thanks to Obamacare. But that vastly understates the true number of winners because millions of other Americans — including many who oppose the act — would have been at risk of being one of those 30 million.

…. In short, unless you belong to that tiny class of wealthy Americans who are insulated and isolated from the realities of most people’s lives, the winners from that Supreme Court decision are your friends, your relatives, the people you work with — and, very likely, you. For almost all of us stand to benefit from making America a kinder and more decent society.

…. the law that the Supreme Court upheld is an act of human decency that is also fiscally responsible. It’s not perfect, by a long shot … but it’s still a big step toward a better – and by that I mean morally better – society.

Which brings us to the nature of the people who tried to kill health reform – and who will, of course, continue their efforts despite this unexpected defeat …. what was and is really striking about the anti-reformers is their cruelty …. it has long been obvious that the opposition’s goal is simply to kill reform, never mind the human consequences. We should all be thankful that, for the moment at least, that effort has failed.

…. The cruelty and ruthlessness that made this court decision such a nail-biter aren’t going away.

But, for now, let’s celebrate. This was a big day, a victory for due process, decency and the American people.

Greg Sargent: Romney supported a tax increase, remember? GOP strategists are predicting that by calling the mandate a “massive tax increase,” they’ll be able to win over independents in battleground states. Perhaps, but as noted above, they may also be alienated by the drive for full repeal. Either way, this is made even more absurd by the fact that Romney supported precisely the same tax increase as Governor of Massachusetts.

Washington Post: …. “The most effective argument for Romney is that this is a massive tax increase that will impact hardworking Americans,” said GOP strategist Ron Bonjean…..

Romney’s history, however, may make it difficult for him to capi­tal­ize on that argument.

The health-care system that he put into place as Massachusetts governor – which was a model for the federal law – included a mandate with a similar penalty for noncompliance.

At the time, Romney also denied that it was a tax, preferring instead to refer to it as a “fee” or an “incentive.”

See, you did it! :lol: I laughed out loud when i saw you there, because true to form I was chatting away and then when I went to post was told that I wasn’t logged in. This made no sense of course as I had already answered on the last post, so my take is that this one was meant for you, CJ. Wave your trophy high!

Awesome 57…I swear when the reporter here was announcing the news, she had a grin on her face and when she asked what does it mean for “he who tell lies,” her grin got bigger…the Washington correspondent diplomatically responded, “it makes his bid harder.”

Hey VC that prize is for you…
Hiya Mayor Chips, if I am ever 1st again (which is highly unlikely) could I get a yoga prize…
Oh Mayor and while I am at it…since there are naughty mats and I am not of the naughty mat gang, can I please get a yoga mat in a corner somewhere…thanks, a humble lurking citizen.

yes Mayor (hangs head, sniff..sniff) but can I please say something in my defense… “it’s all VC’s and amk’s fault, they are model of bad/good behavior. :P (mutters in her best Calvin voice, “I think that worked.”)

Morning Cc! Where do you find these things so quickly??!! I am in awe of you, oh great Mayoress!
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.BTW, did you give me my boy and girl ‘What a day’ picture from last night? I’d better go check again.

Yes, they’re yelling that this is a tax hike on the middle class. Tax, tax, tax! IRS is coming after you! An aggressive ad campaign, as well as well-spoken advocates will be crucial to not allowing the GOP and their news media partners to turn this win into a loss for President Obama. All their factions are engaged.

I think Krugman nailed it here: Think of all the people who are helped by this victory, and you see your neighbors, your colleagues. Only those shielded from “avery day life” by their richess or privilege don’t care.

I don’t have great faith in the truth of those numbers—–they’re always misleading on their donations. And—if they did raise that much, it could have been a couple of self-interested billionaires handing over the cash in their pockets.

The House and Senate both meet Friday to quickly pass a bill extending federal highway programs through 2014, reauthorizing the flood insurance program for five years, and extending low interest rates on student loans for a year.

House and Senate leaders agreed on a way to package these bills together, in order to avoid an expiration of the highway programs and the low student loan rate this weekend.

The House meets at 9 a.m. to take up the rule for the bill, the new H.R. 4348 (details on the bill later this morning). That rule also covers the 2013 spending bills for the Defense Department, and the Treasury Department and related agencies.

The rule vote is expected by the mid-morning, and final passage by early afternoon. The House may also consider amendments to H.R. 5972, the Transportation/Housing and Urban Development spending bill.

The Senate meets at 10 a.m., and might be in a position to pass the highway package before the House does, then escape early for the July 4 break.

IMO it’s really pathetic that senators horse around on serious issues to the American people, then throw something ‘temporary’ together at the last minute.. until the next time….so they can ‘escape early’ to do what they want to do. Gingrich talked about work ethic for poor children during his campaign, and never noticed that Congress daily displays the worst example of work ethics! I find it sad and wrong that senators can get away with this so blatantly, that there is no intermediary consequence for them on not doing they job for which they are handsomely paid!

Hey VC – your city/province looks lovely (hot & windy) this morning/afternoon. Can’t wait to see you and hang out on Tuesday!

About this Congress, how do they think people will be able to budget for college when they only have certainty one year at a time?! I see they whine about “uncertainty” for the corporatists, but don’t spare a second to think about the uncertainty for the rest of America when they fight against laws that have already passed, refuse to invest in projects that will help future generation, war monger at every opportunity, and now, give only a one year extension to critical initiatives that will help put this country on a more competitive and secure future. They truly are pathetic!

This is so funny. I hovered over Tweetland FOREVER wondering where Chips is, took a quick peek at your response,then rush back to T|witter, and of course missed her! I swear she has has a means of knowing when I turn my back!

Welcome to the province of On! I am looking forward to our visit! Hot is right. The grass could certainly use some rain.

Theo, you know Congress doesn’t think…. about budgeting for college or anything! Most of them don’t even think college is necessary. The only redeeming point I can see right now is that in a year we may not have to contend with these jokers at all!

That’s funny 57 – I just got your tweet – If I had just looked at TOD’s Twitter Army I would’ve seen that “Flower” and “57” were the same person – ha! I do like though what you are doing! I think that is a great way to look at the ACA!

Observation- sometimes I will see Clyburn, Van Hollen or pelosi on tv, but no other Democrat sticking up for the HC law.
Are they afraid of the law? Will the fat lefts of the World- like Adam Green with- hold donations?
What is it?
Are House Democrats, allergic to tv Cameras?
Puzzling!

I don’t think they’re asked. I think only GOP are asked to talk to make the race close. I think that the MSM is in the pocket of the GOP and they now feel they don’t have to bother with having dems on, unless they are dems who happen to say something negative about President Obama. It’s so frustrating.

Angela Merkel takes a particularly personal beating, with the front page of Libero featuring a picture of Balotelli leathering a ball featuring the superimposed face of the German chancellor. The headline is “Vaffanmerkel”, a corruption of the German leader’s name and an Italian phrase suggesting in no uncertain terms that the subject go away immediately.

“Grande Italia!” they add. “Germany were dominated and liquidated with two goals from SuperMario Balotelli.” Il Giornale has a similar theme. Their front-page headline reads “Ciao Ciao Culona” – “Bye bye, fat ass”. “It’s not Monti but Balotelli, who with a brace destroys Germany and sends us into the final. Mrs Merkel, it’s you who is leaving the Euro.”

Can’t believe—-well, yes I can—-that Chuck Toad was questioning Axelrod if the health care bill meant Comcast could mess with his health care plan. If that doesn’t say it all—–it’s always me me me me me me. There is only self-interest. There is never any concern for the common good.

Bewildered why AP’s Julie Pace was really thrown by being told to dress casual for the Co. trip today. She did not know what that means!!! I know. I’ll fill in if she is just lost in confusion and thrown for a loop with this advisory. (can’t believe she tweeted this)

Wow, Julie. Comfortable slacks and a blouse? No high heel shoes. In case you hadn’t heard, there are wildfires in Colorado. The President may actually plan to talk with real people, working firefighters who are fighting the blazes. You might imagine that those locations aren’t in the best of shape right about now. He wants you all to be attired suitable to the job at hand.

Watching the Republicans react to John Roberts’ ruling on ObamaCare is a lot like going to an exotic zoo and seeing animals you’ve never seen before. Their behavior is unfamiliar and fascinating. I guess we’re used to the collective freak-out aspect of it, but they seem so stunned and disoriented. It’s also kind of revealing in the sense that many conservative politicians are showing that they really believe their own horseshit.
On the one hand, you have savvy politicians like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who came out and said he wasn’t surprised because the mandate was clearly a tax. He knows the GOP has been engaged in pure political posturing. But then you have guys like Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, who tweeted that he felt like he had lost two friends today: John Roberts and America.

Let’s be honest. Most of these pols are smart enough to know that making people pay a small fine if they aren’t insured isn’t going to change the fundamental character of this country. It’s not a slippery slope that will soon find the government taxing people for having children or getting married, as Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina suggested today. What these folks are afraid of is something different.

They are afraid that people will like these reforms when they are fully implemented and demand that the government continue to regulate and improve the system. Let’s start with the CBO estimate that the bill will eventually result in 30 million people getting health insurance who would not otherwise have it. Think about that number for a minute. And then ask yourself, “who could possibly think that is a bad thing?”

They are now in disarray. Half of them feel betrayed by Roberts, the other half feel betrayed by life in general. The message for liberals should not be to move on from this victory, but to press the advantage. Obviously, Obama wants to move on and talk about jobs and the economy, but for those of us in the rank and file, this decision is an unlimited ammo dump. Keep pressing the advantage, keep talking about the benefits that consumers will experience under the law, keep mocking the “socialism” and “unconstitutional” claims, and keep moving forward. Remember, this is easy turf. A couple years ago Republicans were arguing that crushing a child’s testicles was constitutional. Now they want to argue that denying your child health care when he has leukemia is constitutional. Go in for the fucking kill, liberals.
For once in your god damned lives, put aside your fucking stupid beliefs about purity and how the public option was the bestest thing since sliced bread, accept the massive, game-changing victory you got today, and use it as a god damned bludgeon against the troglodytes whose health care plans are modeled after Ebeneezer Scrooge. For once, focus your bloodlust on Republicans instead of the DLC/Firebaggers/ANYONE WITHOUT AN (R) AFTER THEIR NAME. I’m begging you.

Thank you so much for this. If only we could have the full speech somewhere. I guarantee you there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house. She was phenomenal. She always gives good speeches but this one felt very personal, very moving.

Good morning Chips and friends. Thanks for posting the excerpts about FLOTUS yesterday. Someone posted a link to the transcript of the entire speech yesterday and it was fantastic. I just pictured her delivering the speech.

For anyone living in voter suppression states, please look at the rules for absentee voting. Absentee voting is heavily used by Republicans and the rules allow vast leeway so that Republican voters don’t have to be subjected to the voter ID requirements. In the state of PA, if you have voted before and use an absentee ballot, you just have to have a SS# and nothing else for your application and ballot. Yes, you have to ask to vote absentee, but it’s easy to find yourself away from your voting area on election day. First time voters without a photo ID still have to get non driver photo IDs, but this is a far lesser number of people than the whole universe of those who voted before, but don’t have a drivers license. For students who need ID’s with expiration dates, the state of PA is now allowing stickers that can be placed on the IDs. Bottomline: read your state voter suppression laws thoroughly and go to your voter registration office for questions and confirmation of your interpretation. I’ve gotten lots of help from people in these offices because, for the most part, they want to implement these laws as fairly as possible. If we all do a good job of voter registration and encourage absentee voting, we will overcome these malicious barriers put in our way by unscrupulous state legislatures. Register more voters than ever before and donate until it really hurts.

During the eight years of President George W. Bush, I could count on one hand the number of times I logged on to the whitehouse.gov website. Today, whitehouse.gov is my home page. The website is choke full of good information and it makes use of every social networking tool available. It is astonishing to see on a daily basis the volume of updates on projects and initiatives that are being implemented to improve the lives of the American people. I have watched the website grow and improve over the last three and a half years. It is constantly being tweaked.

I watch West Wing Week and the Saturday Address each week with pride and admiration for the hard work that President Obama and his administration are doing for the American people. I wish more journalists, pundits and Americans were making use of this powerful resource. It’s one-stop-shopping for the facts on President Obama and his administration. I can just imagine the number of times people would be saying “Gee, I didn’t know that”.

To appreciate the magnitude of the changes that have been made, this is what whitehouse.gov looked like on January 20, 2009 as President George W. Bush was leaving office: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/

The Republican Party is constantly railing against government. They think government is the problem. But President Obama is showing the American people how a smart and efficient government can be a positive force in their lives. President Obama is making government cool again and it’s freaking out the GOP.

I see that Iowa’s Leonard Boswell was one of the 17 democrats who voted against AG Holder. I’m not defending him at ALL (who could?) – but here’s a bit of what’s his problem:
Iowa is one of the states that has lost population in the last census and you know what that means! Redistricting! They have combined the districts of Rep. Boswell and Rep Latham – the election is pitting two incumbents against each other. How often does THAT happen? So I’m figuring ole Leonard was trying to appeal to the red neck folks in his rural districts or something (who knows?)

It’s apparently not working too well anyhow – Latham’s ahead right now:

So much for that idea. TPM’s Nick Martin reports that some conservatives have “looked for ways to blame it on President Obama.”
Some of the same people who have bashed the president as a big government, big spending liberal now say a wildfire that destroyed hundreds of homes in the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs can be blamed on the president because he has been too slow to spend money to beef up the federal fleet of air tankers.
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But I’m also struck by the larger political dynamic. Mitt Romney just said he rejects the notion that the nation needs more firefighters, and the right responds by attacking Obama for not spending enough money on fire-fighting equipment? I realize every development everywhere is now subject to election-year politicization, but is this really necessary?

To that end, in October Democrats carved out a $35 billion provision from the AJA that would have provided local jurisdictions with support, to allow them to keep more police, firefighters and teachers on the payroll, which would have provided a boost in economic activity, besides the obvious societal benefits.

But all 47 Republicans in the Senate voted against the bill, which means it “lost” 53-47 (it needed 60 votes to pass). In other words, not only did they deny our children the best possible educational opportunities, but they also voted to deny you police and fire protection. And if you really think about it, they turned their back on the same “first responders” they claimed to lionize when George W. Bush was trying to scare us into thinking we were always under imminent attack.

The Republicans had run the House for eight months beginning in January 2011, and while they were busy proposing bills they knew would never pass, they produced nothing even resembling a job creation initiative. Lots of bills to; kill Medicare; weaken the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts; protect oil company profits; and limit women’s reproductive right. But no plan to create jobs.

On the other hand, Democrats had proposed a number of bills aiming to create jobs, only to have the Republicans kill them all without even allowing debate. Here’s a partial list:

The Build America Bonds to Create Jobs Now Act
The American Jobs Matter Act
The National Manufacturing Strategy Act
The Advanced Vehicle Manufacturing Technology Act
The Currency Reform and Fair Trade Act (which would address currency manipulation that causes jobs to be sent to China)
And a patent reform bill that would have prioritized patent applications based on the inventor’s willingness to manufacture in the United States.

Faced with so much inaction in the face of a continuing employment crisis, on September 8, 2011 President Obama and the Democratic Party presented to Congress the American Jobs Act, a $447 billion bill that contained a large number of initiatives designed to create jobs immediately, as well as incentives for businesses to create jobs. Basically, the breakdown was 53% tax breaks and 47% expenditures. So, it should have been at least half appealing, right?

Don’t you just love that we have embraced the term “Obamacare”. The Repubs are so stupid. They thought they would slander the bill by giving it the President’s name. Now history books will forever associate ACA by that name and they will have to eat it each time their little johnny or sally comes home with a history assignment regarding the evolution of universal health care in America years from now.

Hiya TODville, have a great day/afternoon/evening and night. Don’t forget to hug a loved one and give thanks for something, even if it is just the ability to breathe (since it is the most essential of all). I give thanks to Mayor Chips and this blog and to all TODville contributors, readers, lurkers, funny commenters, joke bringers and everyone in between. Later!!!

As a matter of policy, this is deeply silly. The mandate remains a tax penalty that will only apply to free riders — about 1% of the population, according to the CBO, who can afford insurance but refuse to get it.

But even if we put this aside, there’s that nagging detail the Boston Herald and other Republicans keep overlooking: Mitt Romney’s health care law in Massachusetts, his crowning accomplishment in government, has an identical mandate and an identical tax penalty. If Obamacare’s mandate must be considered a tax increase, Romneycare’s mandate must also be considered a tax increase.

Indeed, we can make this even more explicit: Mitt Romney is the only public official in American history to approve and implement this specific tax increase.

I don’t know if you watch WGN morning news. Unfortunately, we do. They have two folks who they call a Democratic and a eopublcian consultant. These two are idiots. I could present the Republican viewpoint better than the guy who is supposed to be a Republican and the Dem representative is really bad. The Republican consultant was saying this was a case of the Dems winning the battle but losing the war, because Romney will be able to campaign on this being a big tax increase and the Dem consultant didn’t really push back. She did focus on the good points of the act but didn’t handle the tax aspect well.

I would really like for people to say:
“Look, actually the SC upheld the mandate on Commerce Clause grounds. 80% of the Justices who upheld the law did it on that basis. Only 1 Justice argued it was constitutional as a tax. But even if you do want to consider it a tax, it only applies to the small minority who refuse to accept personal responsibility and obtain insurance. And you know who would pay for their healthcare if they had a major illness or accident? The rest of the taxpayers. The people who accept that repsonsbility would pay for it through higher costs for their insurance and higher charges from the health care providers. Are you endorsing freeloading?”

Without the distraction of a court fight and all the silly talk about broccoli it provoked, Obama can reframe the Obamacare debate about as a debate over priorities. Better still, he can talk about it in the same breath as he talks about his opposition to Paul Ryan’s plans for Medicare and Medicaid and taxes—plans, again, that Romney has endorsed. Obama can say, truthfully, that he wants to make sure the poor and middle class have greater security from medical expenses, even if it means that rich people have less money. And he can say, truthfully, that Romney wants the opposite: To take such security away form the poor and middle class, while making sure the rich have more money.

Making that case will require defending the Affordable Care Act explicitly and enthusiastically. The administration has not always done this well, although, to be fair, it has not been easy. The opponents of health care reform have vastly outspent supporters on advertising for it. News coverage focused on the legislative fight and, more recently, the legal one. But the legislating ended long ago and now the litigating has, too. All that’s left is the actual health care plan—and what it would do for people like Natoma Canfield.